Sir Louis Blom-Cooper – obituary

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Sir Louis Blom-Cooper, who has died aged 92, was a key figure in the remarkable development of administrative law in Britain in the later 20th century, which brought more transparency to decision-making in areas such as local government and immigration; he was probably more familiar to the public, however, for his leadership of numerous public inquiries.

Yet for all his eminence, Blom-Cooper was never quite part of the Establishment. He was too reform-minded, perhaps too much the Continental intellectual for the clubbier end of the Bar – one of his cases struck down the principle that barristers could not be sued for negligence – and his intellectual integrity meant he was never the poodle of...